From an artistic point of view, every meeting and opportunity to co-operate with such an original and creative musician as Theo Jörgensmann brings a new and exciting experience. The level of musical understanding between ourselves surprised us once more whilst recording this, our second collaboration in the studio, having earlier created the Miniatures album by the trio Oleś| Jörgensmann | Oleś.

To quote Theo Jörgensmann: – The new improvised music is not based on a relation between the sound and the form, but on a balance of tempo and the direction of the movement, in other words on the developing of musical action. Figurations and abstractions are elements which have equal rights with rhythm and tempo in full spectrum contemporary improvised music, as characterized first of all by the art of shaping musical space-time.

The creating of improvised music consists of noticing all aspects of its development, obtaining inspiration not only from the black roots of jazz but also contemporary and concert music from across the entire rich variety of ethnic music. This enables jazz to travel new courses and flow in different directions.

Everyone who lets themselves enter the music will hear how many different directions it follows.

Marcin & Bartłomiej Brat Oleś

Directions is a substantial, free improvisation and structured quest embraced with unimpeachable instrumentalism, a strong sense of lyricism and a vitriolic purposiveness seldom sought. Considered “the best jazz album of 2005” by Diapazon in Poland, it’s indeed unquestioningly choice and will promise to beseech fans of free improv, contemporary and outer edges of tonal patterns.

This album is the result of a second collaboration by one of Europe’s well-nigh criminally under-notorious trios, comprising Theo Jörgensmann on bass clarinet, Marcin Olés on double bass and Bartolomiej Bart Oles on drums and percussion. The trio is ring-shaped on a core of musical clashes.

“Alpha-Beta-Blanka” bags the disc to a robust free inception with Jörgensmann and Brat Oles’s ambient sounds setting the keystone for a variety of halcyon musical soundscapes. Marcin Olés footmarks with an encompassed bass, determining the melody around the rift point. Bart Oles squeezes cymbals and curvatures. “Per Rata” (composed by Marcin Olés) coltishly starts on an offbeat-like tempo while Bart Oles’s booming drums scope a frenetic pace. “January 5” thrills in full-slope with the hub element of the trio’s aesthetic, featuring an absolutely crushing line from the drums/bass/clarinet assembly. It’s an auspicious piece, filled with experimentation and a driving dynamic that is highlighted all over the set. Few bands could pull this virility off and even fewer with the coolness that Marcin Olés, Bartolomiej Bart Oles and Theo Jörgensmann convey.

“Giuffree” and “Aesthetic Directions” are the authorship of Jörgensmann. Though Jörgensmann can unchain fussy layers of urgent freedom with springing, jazz-modulated phrases, he also discerns how to drift back, to place his horn in the above-board field of the trio. “Zen deTractorist”, “Parbat”, “Byway” and "Voices of the Threes” are Bart Olés inspirations. The drummer floats throughout each one with salient technique and turbulent rhythms, always displaying forceful, solid-kicking dynamics, challenging drum logic. Marcin Olés with his arco and strings collide with Jörgensmann, piercing waves and sparks of his own with each curl of his brother’s song ideas and musical structures.

This trio vividly empathizes and their passion is transmittable. Directions is dour to listen to without piercing into satisfactory grinning.